The Boise company administered health and child-care flexible spending accounts for about 100 employers in and out of Idaho, including the Boise and Nampa school districts and the Ada County Highway District.

The FBI is investigating, and Boise police are cooperating with the FBI, a Boise police spokeswoman said. XpressFlex says it is a victim, too, and is cooperating with the FBI.

Flexible spending accounts are an IRS-approved way for employees to sock away money tax-free for medical expenses and child care. The money is typically deducted from employee paychecks.

XpressFlex, at 7025 W. Emerald St., was a third-party administrator that handled those funds for clients, about half of whom were in Idaho.

Wayne Davis, XpressFlex's CEO and owner, told the Idaho Statesman that there isn't money to make the workers' accounts whole. He said he is counting on a lawsuit to help him get those dollars.

XpressFlex closed after employees of the two school districts reported to their employers that XpressFlex's checks were rejected.

"That's ultimately why we had to shut the doors," Davis, who lives in Raleigh, N.C., said Tuesday.

But there should be enough money now for already-issued checks to be made good, he said. Workers "can resubmit them now," he said. "I think we've got the money to cover everything that has gone out."

Many of XpressFlex's clients were small companies with 10 or fewer employers, Davis said.

But in the Boise School District, more than 800 employees would have contributed $1.54 million this school year.

District employees contributed about $891,000 through February and spent about $673,000 so far this year, spokesman Dan Hollar said.

Nampa is also exploring ways to to keep the 162 employees who contribute -- about 10 percent of its work force -- from losing money.

ACHD, which had about 100 of its 300 employees in the program, has established a trust fund to hold future employee contributions until a new administrator for the accounts can be found.

XpressFlex's problems came to the attention of ACHD and the Nampa district earlier this month.

The Nampa district stopped a $20,400 check representing employee contributions that was to go to XpressFlex.

Boise School District officials said they notified the FBI and Boise police and filed a complaint with the Idaho attorney general.

Davis told clients in a memo that the FBI investigation arose from a dispute over his sale of PayrollAmerica, a payroll administration company he started in Boise that eventually led to his creation XpressFlex. PayrollAmerica approached the FBI three months ago, he said.

"The monies due XpressFlex from PayrollAmerica are related to an ongoing legal dispute" with a third company over funds that were unaccounted for when PayrollAmerica was sold last year, Davis wrote.

Neither he nor XpressFlex is the subject of the FBI investigation, Davis told the Statesman.

But "as part of this investigation, all the records of PayrollAmerica and XpressFlex have been provided to the auditors and investigators," he wrote in his memo.

In a letter to the Nampa School District, he wrote, "The debts owed by PayrollAmerica to XpressFlex have grown to a point we can no longer survive."

The FBI declined to comment.

The Nampa and Boise districts and ACHD are looking for another company to administer future funds.